A Sociological Study of Relationship between Ethnic Identity and Consumer Behavior*(Case Study: Lorestan Province)

The term "consumer behavior" is used to refer to the consumption of a product or service and the construction and decision-making process by the consumer. Consumption is a multifaceted phenomenon and cultural factors play a significant role in determining and modifying the phenomenon of consumption. Therefore, it is appropriate to examine this phenomenon from a cultural perspective, especially ethnic culture. This research seeks to answer the question: "What is the relationship between ethnic identity and consumer behavior?”. The statistical population of the study is the population of Lorestan province and the survey method was used to collect data from the sample, which 400 people were selected. Our findings, based on the values ​​of CR (-7.17) and P (***) indices, show that there is a significant relationship between ethnic identity and consumer behavior and there is a negative correlation between these two variables, that is, whatever the ethnic identity is weaker, the consumer behavior will be stronger. This result is consistent with the results of the study of Ajzan and others and confirms the theory of Ajzan. The ethnicity variable is directly related to income with a beta coefficient (-0.31). The effect of gender has a beta factor (-0.25), which indicates that women are more tended to consume than men. In general, of the four hypotheses mention in this study, two hypotheses "relationship between pride feeling and consumer behavior" and "orientation to ethnicity - lack of orientation to other ethnicities - and consumer behavior" confirm, which is based on the inverse relationship between consumer behavior and the dimension of the feeling of ethnic identity pride with beta coefficient (-0.33) and orientation to ethnicity with beta coefficient (-0.38).